Graphics: Turbo vs. Genesis - ye old debate

[Tom]

I always felt that Japanese developers never fully pushed the machines as often as they should have. I was always surprised after seeing some new graphical effect or hearing some great sound that others would not try to replicate them. Why were there not sampled drums in every game, for example? Why was there not parallax scrolling everywhere? Of course I didn't realise then that some programmers could actually be lazy/rubbish.

 Japanese developers in general aren't hardware pushers like the Euro crew were. Euro coders really went above and beyond for their systems, my god. And US coders? Meh...

[Tatsujin]

what you can see on a Rendering Ranger. Mani pushed the SFC to it's sheer max, even he wasn't such familiar with the hard than may be major developer as konami etc. and even more impressive, he did it all on his own!

but when it comes to classic 8-/16-bit shooter, in 99% of the cases the japanese always had the nose ahead!

[Nintega]

what you can see on a Rendering Ranger. Mani pushed the SFC to it's sheer max, even he wasn't such familiar with the hard than may be major developer as konami etc. and even more impressive, he did it all on his own!

but when it comes to classic 8-/16-bit shooter, in 99% of the cases the japanese always had the nose ahead!

Don't forget fighting games too. Western stuff like Mortal Kombat and Killer Instinct are IMO pretty bad.

[spenoza]

At least with the Sega Genesis, US coders were capable of quite a bit. Look at Sega's STI division in the US. They did some very good work with the Genesis. Now, there were so few US and EU coders for the PCE/TG-16 it's probably hard to compare.

What TG-16 developers were US and EU, anyway?

[guyjin]

psygnosis?

[Black Tiger]

At least with the Sega Genesis, US coders were capable of quite a bit. Look at Sega's STI division in the US. They did some very good work with the Genesis. Now, there were so few US and EU coders for the PCE/TG-16 it's probably hard to compare.

What TG-16 developers were US and EU, anyway?

Some of these may be the original developer, before someone like Hudson or NEC ported their game to the PC Engine, but I weeded most of those out-

Accolade
Cinemaware
Distinctive Software
Electronic Arts (Canada?)
Excite Software -girly discs
Gremlin Graphics
ICOM Simulations
Incredible Technologies Inc.
Loriciel
LucasArts
Manley & Associates
NEC Technologies
Psygnosis
Spectrum Holobyte
Strategic Simulations, Inc
Tengen
TTI

[Tom]

At least with the Sega Genesis, US coders were capable of quite a bit. Look at Sega's STI division in the US. They did some very good work with the Genesis.

 If you look at the team, you'll find EU coders working for US companies

[geise]

I believe Psygnosis just published the games, but Reflections developed Shadow of the Beast and Ballistix.  I might  be wrong though, just figured I'd add Reflections to the list.  As for Euro and Japanese devs, I think both had great and lazy developers.  I have an Amiga 500 and 1200, also an Atari ST .  I played a lot of great original games on those computers when I was younger, but there were a lot of games that were bad graphically, and didn't push the hardware at all.  When it came to arcade ports devs were really lazy.  With the hardware the Amiga had most games should have been fairly close to the arcade.  The amiga at the time was fairly similar to the x68000.  The x68000 had near arcade perfect ports.  Granted it was those same companies porting those games,  but still.

[ccovell]

At least for Shadow of the Beast, it was DMA Design who did the port.  I don't even know what role Reflections ever had in those Psygnosis games...

Oh, and wasn't it "The Code Monkeys" who did the port of Turrican?

[nodtveidt]

Oh, and wasn't it "The Code Monkeys" who did the port of Turrican?

The Code Monkeys did both the TurboGrafx-16 and Sega Genesis ports of Turrican. I believe it was Factor 5 themselves who did the NES port, though.

[Arkhan]

Reflections designed SotB, and Psygnosis was the publisher.


and for what its worth the PCE CD game is better than even the Amiga original.

[spenoza]

At least with the Sega Genesis, US coders were capable of quite a bit. Look at Sega's STI division in the US. They did some very good work with the Genesis.

 If you look at the team, you'll find EU coders working for US companies

That doesn't necessarily contradict the premise, which is that I'm relatively certain there were US coders of talent as well.

[Tom]

For the record, the x68000 was much closer to the CPS1 hardware than the Amiga was. More powerful for tile/sprite games than the Amiga.

That doesn't necessarily contradict the premise, which is that I'm relatively certain there were US coders of talent as well.

 Other than Carmack, I don't haven't heard of anybody. There were some semi-famous guys for the c64 - might be some US guys in that bunch.

 Funny that 4 Euro developed games for the PCE and none of them really push the system Euro style :/

 Since this is a tech thread, I should mention something that was recently found out about the Arcade card. Development for the card started in '92. It was missing some regs and was a bit slower, but it was functional. It looks like Art of Fighting also started development for the prototype card in '92. It was finished in 3rd quarter '93, but had a delayed release date for some reason.

[ParanoiaDragon]

Reflections designed SotB, and Psygnosis was the publisher.


and for what its worth the PCE CD game is better than even the Amiga original.

I have mixed emotions about this.  There's some missing paralax, that's for sure(like the fence in the field area is gone, no paralax in either underground area's, etc.).  I think I even like the clouds in the original better.

[Tatsujin]

and for what its worth the PCE CD game is better than even the Amiga original.

if you talking about the BGM, absolutely agreed. for the rest, nooooo way